


Fine Print

by mistyzeo



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Established Relationship, Glasses, Growing Old Together, Hand Jobs, Love, M/M, Oral Sex, Retirement, Sherlock Holmes and Bees, Snark, Sussex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:26:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1890150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyzeo/pseuds/mistyzeo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holmes needs glasses, but he's too much of a stubborn arse to go get his eyes checked. Watson is used to bullying him for his own good. The glasses have unexpected but not unwelcome consequences for everyone.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/post/90818405360">Illustration by ireallyshouldbedrawing.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Fine Print

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fictionforlife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionforlife/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Мелкие детали](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5117666) by [Bothersome_Arya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bothersome_Arya/pseuds/Bothersome_Arya)



> For [ireallyshouldbedrawing](http://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/), as a gift! [Go look at the thing she made me in return!!!!!!!](http://ireallyshouldbedrawing.tumblr.com/post/90818405360)
> 
> Thanks owed to [Maz](http://mazarin221b.tumblr.com) for the beta work and [Jaradel](http://jaradel.tumblr.com/) for the title.

Sherlock Holmes could not stretch his arms far enough in order to read the morning paper. I watched him from across the breakfast table, a piece of toast halfway to my mouth, and cleared my throat as he squinted and struggled.

“Shall I fetch your music stand?” I asked.

“Oh, go to hell,” he said, slapping the paper down on the table. “It isn’t as if there’s anything worth reading there anyway.”

“Holmes, I think it might be time to consider–”

“It certainly is _not_ ,” Holmes snapped. “It’s an unnecessary concession, as I’ve said before. Kindly stop bringing it up at every opportunity.”

“I’m not _bringing it up_ ,” said I, putting the toast down and giving him my best physician’s glare. “You’re the one who has asked me to order for you in every restaurant we’ve been to in the last six months.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we don’t go to restaurants very often,” Holmes said. “I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you so.”

His tone stung me, but it wasn’t the first time. “Holmes,” I chided, “really.”

“Watson, really,” he mocked. “I’m going to look at the bees.”

He was out the door before I could protest, his long, lanky form stalking away through the garden and out the gate. He disappeared beyond the hedge, and I allowed myself a little self-indulgent pout as I picked up my toast once more. His eyesight was the latest in a series of recent complaints, all having to do with the inevitable progress of age: first it was his knees, which no longer allowed him to run full-tilt across a field after a swarm of honeybees as he had once chased villains in London; then it was the arthritis in his fingers that forced him to reduce his violin-playing to only an hour a day; not to mention that every winter since we’d moved to Sussex he’d contracted bronchitis, and I was terrified that some year soon it would be pneumonia instead. He tried his best to ignore the headaches that accompanied his increasing need for spectacles, but on several occasions I had managed to convince him to take an aspirin for it and lie down. He complained the whole time, to no avail.

I knew better than to go after him that morning. He was resisting me for some reason of his own beyond pure stubbornness, but pestering him wasn't going to bring it out. Besides, as used as I was to his rudeness, it still smarted.

He came back a few hours later, surlier than ever. He didn't say anything to me, certainly nothing resembling an apology, so I ignored him. I was occupied, at any rate, with an adventure novel I'd been struggling to write for a while. It seemed fictionalised memoirs were more my forte than actual fiction. Holmes banged around in the kitchen for a few minutes, making a nuisance of himself, and then he set a plate with a sandwich on it down on the corner of my desk.

"Thank you," I said, not looking up.

There followed a few minutes of peace, wherein I watched Holmes out of the corner of my eye as he glared out the window and ate his own sandwich, his whole body tense. Eventually I put down my pen and picked up my plate, and pushed myself to my feet to join him.

"Watson," he began, and hesitated.

"This was a clever thing to do with the leftover chicken," I said, taking a bite of cold roast chicken and bread.

"No it wasn't," he said, "but it was the only thing in the icebox I felt like eating."

"Well, I'm glad for that at least. How are the bees?"

Holmes sighed. "Tolerably well," he said. "I think."

I glanced at him, frowning. He looked even more despondent than before, and I put my half-eaten sandwich down and turned to face him fully. "What's the matter, old boy?"

He winced at the endearment. We'd called each other that since we were young, and I'd never seen him flinch from it before.

"Didn't you go out to see to them?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "but they hardly need my help anyway. It's— I couldn't— well, damn it, I couldn't _see_ them."

 _Cataracts_ , I thought, with a stab of horror. But Holmes's eyes were clear and bright, with no trace of the telltale cloudiness.

"It's all a blur," he said sadly, tipping forward to rest his forehead on the windowpane. "Even my bees, after all this time. I can't see the honeycomb. I can't see their dances. I can barely tell the queen from her drones without holding her so far away I might as well be standing across the field."

"That's enough, now," I said. "I think it's high time we went to the optician and had your eyes examined."

"The details are all gone," Holmes went on, as if he hadn't heard me. "What good am I without the details? If I can't read the state of a man's marriage from his hat, or tell his profession from his thumbnails, or know his club membership from his watch chain?" He spun away from the window, throwing his hands into the air. "I haven't been able to tell where you've gone in town for weeks now, until you put the post down in front of me! And _then_ , I can't read the bloody post!"

"Holmes," I said, reaching for him, "please."

"Damn it all, Watson," he snarled, "why do I even bother? What use is a blind detective?"

"You're not a detective anymore," I reminded him.

"What am I, then?" he asked, the fury suddenly draining out of him. He sank down on the sofa and put his face in his hands.

I sat down beside him, gingerly. "An amateur beekeeper," I said. "A brilliant chemist. A writer of some dubious repute."

He elbowed me in the side, but I had brought a smile to his face.

"My own dear, infuriating fellow," I said more softly.

"I am that," he said, leaning against me and putting his head on my shoulder. I patted his knee. "Do you know," he said, "I haven't read a proper book in nearly a year?"

I nodded. "I had noticed. You haven't gone digging in the attic for some obscure monograph on frog's venom or what have you in goodness knows how long."

Holmes squeezed the bridge of his nose between two fingers.

"I'll make the call," I offered. "I'll set up the appointment for you. I'll do all the work, I'll even drive you into town, if you agree to see the optician."

"Fine," he muttered. "But I don't have to like it."

Smiling to myself, I kissed his forehead. "You certainly don't."

+++

Three days later, we had an appointment with Dr Winston Sinclair, a young, spry, black-haired doctor who took Holmes's sighs of regret and consternation in stride. "It's very common, Mr Holmes," he said as we stood in his small waiting room, surrounded by gleaming cases of spectacle frames and posters about the anatomy of the eye. "A significant portion of the population, once they are beyond forty or fifty years of age, develop presbyopia. That is, longsightedness. Doctor Watson is very fortunate to have escaped this affliction so far." He winked at me.

Holmes scowled. I glared at him. He subsided.

"Now, if the Doctor would be so kind as to wait," Dr Sinclair said, "we won't be more than ten minutes. This way please, Mr Holmes."

I took the only seat available and whiled away ten minutes reading a magazine. I could hear their voices— Sinclair inquiring, Holmes answering, Sinclair laughing— but could make out none of the conversation. Holmes had been… not exactly chilly toward me, but decidedly subdued over the last few days. He had visited his bees at the usual times, but not for very long. We had taken our regular evening walks, but Holmes had spent most of the time staring out at the ocean. I kept opening my mouth to break in upon his reverie, but always thought better of it at the last moment. He occasionally graced me with a little smile when he caught me doing it, and took my arm to draw me close.

The consulting room door opened, and I sat up straight as Sinclair ushered Holmes out. 

"Any frames you like, Mr Holmes," he was saying. "The lenses can be fitted to them."

Holmes glanced at me ruefully. "You were right," he said.

"Of course I was," I replied, getting up. "You're not going to regret this."

He rolled his eyes and waved a hand at the cases full of empty frames. "You pick," he said.

Sinclair unlocked the nearest case for us and left us to our own devices.

I picked a few different kinds: a pince-nez, a pair of half-moon spectacles, a pair with square eyepieces. Holmes tried them on, looked in the mirror, scoffed. I picked a few more. We went through most of the case, narrowing the options down, and then Holmes said, "How about these?" 

He turned away from the mirror, and my breath caught in my chest. The spectacles perched on his nose were perfect circles ringed with gold, and they suited his angular face so exactly that I almost didn't believe he hadn't been wearing them all his life. His stormcloud eyes behind them were bright and inquisitive, and he had one expressive eyebrow arched in query.

"Why, they're very— that is, they seem quite— oh, _Holmes_ ," said I, unable to keep quite enough of the amazement out of my voice. My heart was pounding, and my face felt hot. I swallowed hard, and as he lowered his hands I reached out to press one of them between my own. It was the only expression of affection I could give him in the optometrist's office, and he understood. A shadow of a smile flitted across his face. 

"Are they really?" he asked dryly. "Well, I suppose I know what that means."

"Look in the mirror," I urged him. I took hold of his shoulders and turned him around again.

He squinted at himself and shrugged. "They'll do, I suppose," he said. "I'm not the one that has to look at me all the time."

"Holmes," I said under my breath, "I'm not certain I'll survive."

He laughed, a joyful, ringing laugh that made me grin in surprise. "You'll become immune," he said. "You've muddled through the rest of it so far." His tone was flippant, but a pleased blush stained his cheeks.

"Besides," I said, "they make you look terribly clever."

"I don't need to _look_ clever, you ridiculous man," Holmes said, taking off the glasses. 

Sinclair, who up until this moment had been professionally ignoring us, was at attention at once, taking the frames from Holmes. "An excellent choice, Mr Holmes," he said. "They should be ready in about a week, but I'll send a note round to let you know."

+++

The week passed without much fanfare: Holmes allowed me on one occasion to read the headlines in the paper to him, and then certain stories as he decided they were fit for his attention. I suspected this was his attempt at apologizing for his stubbornness. I used to read to him all the time at Baker Street, and even out here on the Downs, but as his eyesight worsened he didn't want the reminder. He didn't like to think he _needed_ me to read anything to him.

It rankled a bit, I won't lie. It's nice to be needed. But Holmes always has been the most independent creature on Earth, so I tried not to take it too personally. I hoped that the moment he could see his own correspondence again, he'd find it too dull to look at and toss it in my direction.

The note from Dr Sinclair arrived the following Tuesday, and we went into town in my automobile. I stopped at the post office and Holmes went into the optometrist’s, but he wasn't wearing the spectacles when I met him in the street.

"I'll try them on at home," he said, holding the parcel tucked under his arm.

"Holmes, honestly."

" _Fine_ ," he groaned, fifty-seven years old and petulant as a child. He unwrapped the parcel roughly and I took the paper from him to keep him from throwing it on the ground. Inside was a small, rigid, leather case which protected the gleaming spectacles from harm. Holmes handed this over as well, and grudgingly put them on.

He was silent for a moment, but I watched as his eyes got big and his lips parted in amazement.

"Oh, _John,_ " he said, sliding the spectacles off and on again. "Oh, my God."

I tried to keep the smugness out of my voice. "Is it that different?"

"Clay and chalk," he said joyfully. He stared hard at me, took the spectacles off and squinted, and then put them back on and beamed. "I feel as though I haven't seen you properly in weeks. Months, even. _John!_ "

I cleared my throat. He was being terribly indiscreet. He usually only used my given name when we were engaged in some variety of sexual congress, and to hear it— _twice_ , in _that tone_ — in a public setting was having a strange and inappropriate effect on me. The glasses, too, were adding to my discomfort. They were _splendid._

Holmes ignored me. He snatched up my hand and brought it close to his face, where he peered for at least a minute at my fingertips.

"No," he said at last, letting me go, "I hadn't forgotten them, but what a lovely thing to see them again."

"My fingers?"

"Your fingerprints," he said. "And— goodness, Watson, you've got at least a dozen new grey hairs."

I grinned at him. "Think of what you've missed at home.”

We drove home without actually conversing, but Holmes kept exclaiming and peering at things and comparing his vision with and without his spectacles. He was converted, after all that fuss. I reminded myself not to gloat too often in the next few weeks. When we got back to the cottage, Holmes took off at once for the apiary, shouting that he'd be back shortly, that he was only going for a quick look.

It was several hours before he returned, sunburnt and windblown and positively glowing. Seated at my desk, I had just begun to think about what to make for supper— I was a mediocre cook, at best, but it gave me something to do— when he burst in.

"Watson!" he cried. "Watson, my very dear fellow, I owe you an apology."

"No, that's—"

"I owe you a thousand," he said, sinking to his knees beside my chair. He took my hands and made me turn to face him, peering up at me through his shiny, round new spectacles. "I have been an absolute horror to you, and I am sorry."

"It's all right," I said. "You had your reasons, whatever they were."

"Please," he said, stroking his hands meaningfully up my thighs, "let me make it up to you."

It would have taken a much stronger man than I to resist him, especially with those perfect round glasses framing his beautiful, piercing eyes. He saw my resolve (not firm to begin with) crumbling, and it brought a slow, sly smile to his face. He licked his lips and bit the lower one as I leaned back in my chair and parted my legs.

"If you insist," I said with badly feigned nonchalance. I cupped his upturned face in both hands and bent to kiss him. 

The glasses were at once in the way, and he reached up to take them off.

"No," I said, catching his fingers. "Will you— leave them?"

He let them settle back onto his aquiline nose once more and smirked at me. "Oh, John, I had no idea."

"Neither did I."

"If they get to be too… much, I'm taking them off," he warned.

"Whatever you like," said I, "just, please, at first…"

He winked at me, which almost stopped my heart. I carded my fingers through his hair and slouched a bit as he moved his hands up to caress my newly-interested groin. I hardened quickly under his fingers, but he spent a long time just touching me through my trousers, his attention fixed on the movement of his hands, or the shape of my prick under the fabric, or perhaps just the weave of the fabric itself. I didn't think to rush him, though, because nothing ever aroused me so much as the hawk-like focus of those eyes.

"I must say," he murmured, glancing up at me over the top of the spectacles, "that seeing you again, like this, and like— like _this_ ," indicating with another gentle squeeze, "is quite unparalleled."

"I've missed you, too," I admitted. "You've been— distant."

"I've felt distant," he said, beginning to untuck my shirt from my trousers. "I'm sorry, I really am."

"Will you tell me—?" I began, but he shook his head.

"Not now. After."

"After, then," I agreed, and I would hold him to it. Meanwhile, he bent his head to nuzzle at the ridge of my cock, and I dropped my head back with a groan. I stroked his hair and down the back of his neck, behind his ears and along the cut of his jaw, and I felt him smile. Then he unfastened my trousers and I lifted my hips to push them down as he pulled me free of my drawers.

“Hmm,” he sighed, gazing at my ruddy erection in his pale hand. I began to blush, and he looked up again to make sure he still had my full attention. I unbuttoned my waistcoat and shirt, baring my centerline to him, and he slid a hand up the middle of my belly in appreciation. With the other he began to stroke me leisurely, rolling my foreskin away from the crown of my prick to expose the slit, and then up again to swallow it entirely. I let out a breath through my teeth and combed my fingers along his scalp.

He touched me like that for a few minutes, his breathing deep and steady, his strong, sensitive hands working me slowly up and down. His scrutiny was flattering and overwhelming. He’d taken the time to look me over from head to toe before, but this felt new, as if he were relearning me from the beginning. Perhaps he was. I didn’t think I’d changed much over the last few months, but to Holmes, details are everything.

Then he stopped, and I opened my eyes again, about to protest, to find him unbuttoning his waistcoat and his shirtcuffs. He tossed the waistcoat aside and rolled his sleeves up. I stroked my hands down his bare forearms as he took me in hand again, and gripped just below the bend of his elbows when he bent his head to touch his tongue to the tip of my cock.

"Christ, Holmes," I gasped as my glans slid between his lips. His tongue was warm and soft, cradling me in the hollow of his mouth, and his eyelashes fluttered behind the lenses of his spectacles.

They really were going to be the death of me. He began to bob his head slowly, wetting the column of my prick with his saliva, and the glasses glinted in the sunlight coming through the window. I was the source of his debauchery, the cause of his disarray, and the polished and proper element of the spectacles made the whole thing more wicked. A man wouldn't wear his cufflinks or his collar studs into bed (although it had been known to happen, in our house); nor would he keep his glasses on, unless he were so warm for his lover that he simply forgot. The fantasy was not lost on me.

The sight of Holmes with my prick in his mouth never failed to drive my ardor to a fever pitch— to watch his lips stretch around my girth, his tongue curling at intervals around my head, was one of my greatest private joys— and now, with the spectacles on, I was already in danger of spending myself. I tried to hold back, to keep myself in check and not embarrass myself, but no amount of deliberately relaxing my pelvic muscles or attempts at steady breathing would beat the simultaneous visual and oral stimulation. I would be brought low by Holmes's sweet, sucking mouth, his swollen lips, his impossibly long fingers wrapped around the root of my cock, his gunmetal eyes behind his gold-rimmed spectacles as he looked up at me for approval.

It was the last image that did me in. I gasped his name and clutched his forearms, and he went still and held me tightly as I came with a shudder. I felt him swallow as I relaxed, and then he was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and sitting back on his heels to catch his breath.

"Come up here," I panted, pulling him upright. He freed himself long enough to shuck his trousers and climbed half-naked into my lap. I kissed him hard, grasping his buttocks, and his prick stood up between us. My hand curled around its stiff length and Holmes clutched my shoulders.

"Oh, God, that's it," he whispered, blushing at his own words. I kissed him again and jerked him quickly, feeling the tension in his thighs. I could taste my emission in his mouth, and he moaned as I thrust my tongue deeper, still hungry for him. My hand moved easily along his shaft, my thumb skimming over his swollen head, and he moaned and squirmed, his bollocks pressing hot against my own spent cock.

We parted and Holmes pressed his forehead to mine, breathing harshly through his nose, his eyelids fluttering. When he did focus, it was to pull back and gaze deeply into my eyes, his attention almost too intense. I stared back, barely blinking, admiring the wrinkles around his eyes, the stripe of pink on his sunburnt nose, the rings of his silver irises around his dilated pupils.

"Your— your eyes," he said, his hips jerking a little as I changed my grip, "the green in them is so— they're like stained glass. Have I ever told you that?"

"No," I said, slipping a hand between our faces to lick it and then applying it tenderly to the slick crown of his cock. He shuddered hard and began to rock on my lap, pushing into the slippery grip of my fist.

"God, they're splendid," he said, breathless. "The— the centres are blue but the edges— the edges are green and I— oh, God, John!”

His orgasm surprised us both, for that was the only warning I got before he was pulsing in my hand and spending over my fingers. I kissed him deeply, knocking his glasses askew, and he groaned and clung to me as he trembled.

I wiped us clean with the handkerchief tucked in my trouser pocket and hugged Holmes to me. I let my hands wander, up the back of his loosened shirt, across the cheeks of his bare arse, and down his soft thighs. He took his glasses off and nuzzled into the crook of my neck, sighing.

"Go on," he murmured.

"What?"

"You can say it."

"Say what?"

"You told me so."

I laughed and squeezed his middle. "I don't think I need to," said I.

"You'd be right to," he said, and pulling back to look down at me. He squinted, grinned, and treated me to the sight of him putting the spectacles back on. "Oh, that's so much better."

"What made you put it off?" I asked, as gently as I could manage. It helped that I was stroking my hands up and down his flanks.

He shrugged and wouldn't meet my eyes. "Bloody-mindedness," he said.

"You know," I said, "it isn't a crime to get old."

"Ugh, Watson," Holmes began, but I kept him captive, enfolding his lean body within the circle of my arms.

"I'm serious," I said. "In fact, I can't think of anything else I'd like more than to carry on doing it with you."

He scoffed, rolling his eyes, but he couldn't hide behind the spectacles or his own facade. I brushed a kiss across his lips, softening their scornful curl.

"I draw the line at incontinence, though," I whispered, which earned me a bark of laughter and a sharp pinch on the arm.

“Cheeky,” he muttered. “Used to be you could lift me from this position. What about now?”

“We’d both go down in a heap,” said I, kissing him. 

“Better not risk it, then,” Holmes sighed against my mouth. “As much as I always liked that move, I think I prefer you in one piece.”

“I wouldn’t dare risk breaking your new spectacles,” I said. I leaned back again to admire them. “They do suit you so well.”

Holmes flushed and fiddled with the frames. “Well, you’ve got your way,” he said. “I hope you’re happy.”

“Well, you can see my face properly again,” I replied, beaming at him. “You tell me.”


End file.
